The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1887-02-24
DEMENTIA DRAMATIZED.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE'S SERMON AT
THE TABERNACLE.


"Now," and Not Tomorrow" Put
Your Trust in God, and Not, Like
King Davi Among the Gathites, "PIay
the Fool"
BROOKLYN, Feb. 20.-The opening hymn at
the Brooklyn Tabernacle this morning, sung
by the whole congregation, begins
Safely through another week
God has brought us on our way;
Let us a blessing seek.
Waiting in His courts to-day.
Professor Henry Eyre Brown, the organ
ist, rendered Satz No. 1 in G. minor, by
Thiele. After running commentary on ap-
propriate passages of Scripture, the Rev. T.
Dewitt Talmage, ID, took for his text:
"Aud he changed his behavior before them,
and feigned himself mad in their hands, and
scrabblcd on the doors of the gate and let his
spittle fall down upon his beard"-I Sam.
xxi, 13. He said:
There is one scene in the life of David that
you may not have pondered You have seen
him with a harp, playing the devil out OF
Saul; with q sling, smashing the skull OF
Goliath; with a sword, hacking to pieces the
piIiii5tincs; with a scepter, ruling a vast
realm; with psalm, gathering all nations
into doxology; but i'll my text, you have
David playing the fool. He has been
anointed king yet he is in exile and passing
lncognito among the GathiteS. They begin to
suspect who he is, and say: Il wonder if this
i the warrior King David2 ltlooks like him.
Is not this the man about whom they used to
make poetry, and about whom they COM
posed a dance, so that the maidens of
10 cit
ard now on the other. used to
sing: "Saul hasslain his thousands, but David
has slain his tens of thousands?" Yes, it is
very much like David 1t must be David.
It Is David" David, to escape their hands,
pretends to be demented. He said within
himself: "If l act crafty, then of course
these people win not injure me. No one
would be so much of a coward as to assault
q mailman" So one day, while these Cath
It's are watching David with increased sus-
picion, they see him standing by the door
running his hands meaninglessly up and
down the panels-scrabbling on the door as
though he would climb up, his mouth wide
open, drooling like an infant. l suppose the
boys of the streets threw missiles at him; but
the sober people of the town said: "This is
not fair. Do you not see that he has lost his
reason. Do not touch this madman Hands
off hands OFF, SO David escaped; but what
an exhibition he made Of himself before all
the agesl There was q majesty in King
Lear's madness after Regan and Gonerill, his
daughters, had persuaded him to bsnish
their sister Cordelia, and all the friends
of the drama have been filled with that
spectacule The craziness of Meg Mer-
rifles was weird and imposing, and the most
telling passage in Walter Scott's Guy Man
nering." There was n fascination about the
insanity of Alexander Cruden, who made the
best concordance of the Bible that the world
ever saw-made it between the mad houses.
Some time ago, while l was visiting the In
sane asylum on BlacKwells island, dement,
cd woman came up to me and said, in most
tragic style:
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.
But there was nothing grand, nothing
weird, nothing majestic, nothing sublime
about this stimulation ON the part of David.
Instead of trusting in the Lord, as he had on
other occasions, he gathers before him vast
audience of all generations that were to
couie, and standing on that conspicuous stage
of history, in the presence of all the ages, he
impersonates the slavering idiot "And he
changed his behavior before them, and
feigned himself mad in their hands, and
scrabbled at the door Of the gate, and let bis
spittle fall down upon his beard"
Taking the behavior of David as sug-
Eestion l wish to tell you how many of the
wise, and the brave, and the regal sometimes
play the fool. And in the first place, 1 re-
mark that those men as badly play the fool as
this man of the text, who in any crisis of life
of fIa Of Io1
David, in this case, acted as though there
were no God to lift him out of the predica-
ment What contrast between his be
havior, when this brave little man stood up in
front of the giant ten feet in height, and look
ing into his face said: 'Thou conest to mt
with a sword, and with spear, and with 6
shield; but come to thee in the name of The
Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies ol
Israel whom thou hast defied. This day
will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand
and l will smite thee and take thine heac
from thee, and l will give the corcasses of the
hosts of the Philistines this day unto the
fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the
earth, that all the earth may know that there
is God in Israel'-bctween that time anC
this time, when he debasei himself, and be
draggled his manhood, and affected insanity
i'll order that he might escape from the griI
of the Gathites. In the one case he played
the hero. In the other case he played the fool
so does every man who, in the great crisis Of
life. takes his case out of the hand of God The
life of the most insignificant man in this houst
is too vast for any human management. One
time returning from the weSt very easll
got on the locomotive while passing over tht
plains, and talked with the engineer; bu
coming on toward the Allegheny mountains
/ thought would like to sit on the locomo
tive as it came down from the mountains
amid that most wonderful scenery on thi
continent. | asked the engineer if l NIGH
ride, but lie courteousy denied me
for there the grade is so steep, anc
so winding, and so perilous. that he mus
not have any one on the locomotive wh(
may divert his attention when eye, and hand
and foot, and brain must be concentrated
ready for the most sudden emergency. Well
my friends, life is so steep, and so pcrious
and so exposed TO sudden surprises, that nom
but the Lord Almighty can guide and EN-
pineer it, aud our disasters come from th
fact that we want TO get up and help tn,
Lord TO manage the train. Keep Off the en-
rine! Be willing to let God pull you wher
lie wants TO pull you. You have no right fc
an instant to surrender your sanity an1 man
hood AS David surrendered his. Put YOU
trust in God, as he will lake you througl
and over the mountains | very mucl
suspect that all the successful enterprise
that were ever carried on, and all the success
full lives that have ever been lived, have beel
fully surrendered to God. When the gir
Victoria was awakened in the night and toll
that the throne Of Great Britain was hers
che said to the prelate informing her: 81 as
your prayers" and then and there they knel
Down and prayed. Do you wonder tha
slough since that time all the thrones o
Europe bave fallen or been fearfully shaken
hers stands as firm as the day she ascende,
IL, and in every country under tn
sun wherever an Englishman hears tina
name pronounced, he feels like waving
his hat and crying: God save the Queen!
That man and that woman, who put thei
trust in God, will go tbroprh in triumph